Sportsmen, conservationists, environmentalists, animal lovers, and others often wish to attract or otherwise care for wild or domestic animals by providing feed for the animals. In many situations, particularly with respect to the of feeding wild animals, the locations most desirable for locating the feed are so remote that a caretaker cannot practically visit them often to bring the feed. In other situations, a caretaker's own schedule may not permit sufficient time for dedicating to animal feeding operations. In these and other situations, the caretaker cannot simply provide an enormous quantity of feed and expect it to last for a long period of time. If an enormous quantity of feed is left at a location where animals can get to it, the feed will soon disappear or become ruined by the weather or by trampling.
Accordingly, animal caretakers often employ automatic feeders located where the feed is to be presented to the animals. The automatic feeders dole out a predetermined quantity of feed on a predetermined schedule. Typically, the schedule is one or two feedings daily. The caretaker may visit the feeder much less frequently, such as weekly or monthly, to refill the feeder and to check for proper operation.
The conventional automatic feeders that are adapted to disperse various types of aggregate materials, such as grains, suffer numerous shortcomings. For example, one type of conventional automatic feeder spaces a hopper, which stores grain, above a distributor, which consists of a horizontal plate having radially extending upright fins. Grain falls from the hopper onto the distributor and "cones-up" so that no additional grain falls from the hopper. By "coning-up", those skilled in the art will understand that the grain forms a mound, or cone, which grows in height until it obstructs an opening in the hopper from which the grain falls. When this happens, no additional grain can fall from the hopper. During a feeding operation, the distributor rotates in accordance with a feeding schedule to broadcast the grain away from the feeder. A battery powered motor causes the rotation. The upright fins cause the grain on the distributor to spin with the distributor, rather than to remain stationary while the distributor rotates underneath the grain.
However, this type of distributor, including its fins, tends to unload grain when the distributor is not rotated in accordance with the feeding schedule. Even relatively light winds may blow grain off the distributor. As the wind blows grain off the distributor, more grain falls from the hopper to replace the grain unloaded by the wind. An entire hopper full of grain may be unloaded and wasted in a very short period of time during windy conditions. In addition, cattle or other crafty animals may learn that they can simply bump this conventional feeder to cause its grain to fall off its distributor. Again, within a short period of time an entire hopper full of grain may be unloaded and wasted.
Furthermore, such conventional automatic feeders typically utilize a relatively large diameter distributor. This large diameter reduces the off-schedule grain unloading somewhat from the off-schedule unloading that would result from using a smaller diameter distributor. However, this large diameter distributor requires the motor to exhibit a correspondingly large torque. Larger torque motors typically consume greater amounts of electrical power, and an automatic feeder's battery life is reduced accordingly. Thus, relatively expensive motors must be included in the automatic feeders and batteries must be replaced or recharged often.